Preparations for Ag Building Underway
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Preparations for Ag Building Underway
A new College of Agriculture building will be constructed alongside a second building housing federal Agricultural Research Services (ARS) just east of the Quad on the site where the old library used to stand.
After graduation this spring, the associate vice president for Facilities, Darrell Hart, said construction will begin with an extension of the utility tunnel, which runs north-south beneath campus and currently ends at the Geology Building.
The tunnel will continue south about 100 feet, Hart said, and will turn east just past the treeline south of the business building to reach the site of the buildings set to be constructed there.
Because the sidewalk running east-west alongside the Quad carries a lot of foot traffic when classes are in session, Hart said he hopes to have the tunnel extension completed during the summer of 2010.
“That’s a ditch 25 feet wide and about 20 feet deep, whe they’re putting the tunnel in,” Hart said.
He said he’d like to limit impeding foot traffic to just around the actual building site once fall semester begins.
However, the construction project on the College of Agriculture building is contingent upon Utah Legislature approval of a change in language in a bill passed two years ago that will allow state funds to be used for the building without waiting for federal funds for the ARS building, Hart said.
Hart said the state of Utah would only bond for its portion once the federal money was received, thus stalling the project unless the legislature honors the request to have the language in the bill changed to allow construction to go ahead using the state portion of the money.
Hart said the College of Agriculture has a “longstanding working relationship” with ARS, which is under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA is responsible for the Bee Lab, poisonous plants lab and forage and range lab. a nd have greenhouses and labs in several parts of Logan.
“The College of Agriculture and ARS often work on similar or sometimes the same projects,” Hart said, and a new building will allow them to centrally locate offices and research from their field work.
The College of Agriculture building will house mainly offices, classrooms and labs, Hart said.
There was an option on the table at one time to have one building combining both ARS and the College of Agriculture, but space requirements, function and design eventually led to two separate buildings, Hart said.
“The feds have certain requirements, and one of those is that they have their own space,” he said.
The university will arrange a long-term lease with the government for that property.
The project, which has been under consideration in planning stages for “several years,” according to Hart, has been headed by a team consisting of the dean and department heads from the College of Agriculture, as well as a project manager, mechanical engineer and others from within facilities.
HDR, a Utah branch of a national firm, is in charge of building design.
The current building the college is using, the Animal Science Building, is about 50 years old and has myriad safety issues and other concerns, such as no air conditioning.
Hart said safety issues include open stairways and asbestos in the building.
“All that 8-inch tile is asbestos tile,” he said.
The windows in the building are all single-pane glass, and the ceilings are too low to leave room to add air conditioning ducts, he said.
The project team held a two-day series of meetings this week, the third such session for the team, to work on planning and decision-making efforts for the project.
“It’s been a full-time effort for a lot of people,” Hart said.
Once construction begins, Hart estimates completion should take about 18 months.
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